Off Site Storage

[scpictaker]

I have 50 GB of pics backed up on my ext. hard drive and feel they need to be backed up elsewhere as well. Any suggestions and can I just dump my "pictures" file to that place in one shot, or do I have to do it folder by folder?

[rklepper]

Get a second external hard drive and back up to that and keep it at work or somewhere other than where the first drive is.

[minhi]

how fast is your internet? 50gb transferred from your home will take a long time and then how will you get it back in a disaster? what if the hosting site goes out of business?

have you considered just storing a second external hard-drive in an off-site location. i know some people will keep 1 onsite, and then use 2 additional drives which they rotate to their off-site location (so you end up swapping the off-site one back and forth).

[gasrocks]

Make DVD copies and store them at work or your uncle's house.

[SteveNC]

Depends on how reliable you need the solution to be.

I use Mozy and with a 20% discount it was $87 for 27 months ($3/month).
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=704003

I don't trust DVD copies as fungus can grow on them, they can snap, get scratched, or be unreadable by the drive later in life. Would you trust a CD or DVD from 1999? Too many factors. What if you store your photos at Uncle Bob's house and then little Joey finds the DVD's and think they look like near little disposable frisbees? (however, lots of people go this route).

Anyway, I found that I could never compete with the data redundancy or protection environment employed by a commercial storage site like Mozy, Carbonite, Amazon S3, etc. I think I just read in Mozy's faq that they can withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake or something crazy. I didn't understand the data redundancy lingo they described their service as using; I'm really paying them to not have to worry about it :). If they go out of business--that's not an overnight event. You'll be able to download your data. Worse comes to worse, you'd have to get them to send your data on a Harddrive or on a bunch of DVDs. Downside is that it takes awhile to upload the data. I have mine running in the background. Afte rthe initial backup, it'll automatically backup any changes to the file system fairly quickly with scheduled nightly backups.

Remember, to each his own with this sort of thing. There are zero "right" answers. Nobody is going to tell you what is best for you, you're going to have to take our advice and come up with your own solution based on your needs, your budget, your own philosophy, and your priorities.

...and by the way -- I just had three hard drives fail in a row within three weeks of each other (brand new units, western digital 1.5TB green drives). It can really happen. I think it's great that you're thinking about backing your photos up before these failures happen. Don't put it off for too long :).

[Wilt]

what if the hosting site goes out of business?

And there was a recent article about exactly that happening, leaving its clients in a lurch with permanently lost data.

[SteveNC]

And there was a recent article about exactly that happening, leaving its clients in a lurch with permanently lost data.

Really? Yikes... Link?

[Wilt]

Really? Yikes... Link?

I gotta find the article again in hardcopy form...recent publication, but not sure I still have it.

Just found this...not the same article, but the same theme and I think the same company

http://technologyinfo.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/online-storage-companies-can-go-bankrupt/

This story mentions numerous on line storage company problems, well before the current recession hit!:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,2108863,00.htm

[SteveNC]

I gotta find the article again in hardcopy form...recent publication, but not sure I still have it.

Okay now I'm questioning this method of backup. Nothing is safe!

[Wilt]

I always have questioned the 'safety' of on line storage off site services. Even from corporate giants...imagine GM offering storage services, what would happen there? At least you are more likely to not be left in a lurch, but transferred in a reasonable fashion rather than thrown in the data toilet!

[SteveNC]

This is very true. I think the main idea people should come away with is that they should have multiple copies, in different locations, on different types of storage. For me, online is one solution that takes the place of having a DVD, or HD's in safety deposit boxes, or something along those lines. If Mozy goes out of business, it wouldn't be a problem because theoretically I'll have at least two other copies in other formats. Same thing goes for people choosing to use backup DVD's at Uncle Bob's house; if little Joey decides to play frisbee it shouldn't be the end of the world.